Best practice 16.3 – Identify performance trends using data

After baselines for performance are established, system administrators must monitor trends over time to see if KPIs remain stable within preferred norms. If the performance data indicates a trend toward unacceptable values of the KPI, system administrators can then take steps to avoid or mitigate performance impacts.

Suggestion 16.3.1 – Conduct regular reviews of SAP system performance

Periodic reviews of KPIs by system administrators can help identify trends in performance-related data as well as determine which alerts might be most beneficial. These alerts can then be used to automate notifications should the trend continue as well as put in place auto-remediation measures to address the potential performance issue (for example, dynamically changing SAP parameters in response to performance indicators). Examples of KPIs and related trends can be found in SAP EarlyWatch Alert reports, which in some cases can be customized with additional useful metrics. SAP service level reporting can also be useful if you have Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in place for your SAP workloads.

Suggestion 16.3.2 – Retain historical data to identify trends

You should retain performance data and associated logs for a predetermined period of time to understand trends in system behavior. Performance tuning of any SAP system will depend on the ability to look back over historical periods of days, weeks, and months to understand what constitutes a performance trend or cyclical performance event. Common events that require retention of data to observe performance impacts include: